OWGR - Week #42

This was another relatively low profile, yet busy week around the world of golf… and something of a celebration of the unconventional swing at the same time, with people like Tommy Gainey, Jim Furyk and Thaworn Wiratchant among the protagonists.

European & Australasia Tours
An excellent performance and a rare win for Bo Van Pelt, once again outside the US, at the Perth International. He will be feeling very unlucky though when he'll see that his great efforts were rewarded with a move up of only one place in the rankings (to #23). Same goes for the runner up, Jason Dufner, a great attraction for anything that moves down under (people, bugs, koalas, kangaroos), as he moves from #10 to #9. Great to see both of them leaving up to their billing and putting up a great show down under...

PGA Tour
A brilliant first ever win by the very popular Tommy Gainey at the McGladrey Classic, following a scintillating last round of 60, which should bring him back up somewhere around #125. Runner up was David Toms who is moving up 4 places to #36. And if you thought BVP was unlucky, spare a thought for Jim Furyk, who not only that continued his depressing series of near misses this year, but just to top it all off, finds himself dropping one place in the rankings to #24 after finishing 3rd...

Asian Tour
Congratulations once again to the 46-year old Thaworn Wiratchant of Thailand for his 3rd win of the season, and a record 15th win on the Asian Tour, at the Hero Indian Open. Now leading the OoM in Asia and being duly rewarded with a great jump up well inside the top 100 (#84) for the first time in his long carreer. Commiserations though to Richie Ramsay who lost the title in a playoff after leading virtually all week until the 72nd hole. A win would've pushed him inside the top 50 and above his fellow Scot Martin Laird, but that will have to wait now, as the runner up position is only bringing him up to #52.

Japan Tour
The dominance of the old guard continues in Japan as well, where the 44-year old Toru Taniguchi won the Bridgestone Open, moving up to #79, from the 43-year old runner up Hiroyuki Fujita, who is moving ever closer to the top 50 line, up now to #55.

OneAsia & Korean Tours
Well done to Kim Dae-Sub, who overcame big names like YE Yang, Bae, Noh or Ryo Ishikawa to win the prestigious Korean Open and is moving up somewhere inside the top 400.

Challenge Tour
Kristoffer Broberg is in familiar teritory, as he wins once again, this time in Copenhagen, for the 4th time in only 6 appearences on the Challenge Tour. He now leads that respective OoM and is moving closer and closer to the top 100, currently somewhere inside the top 130.

Web.com Tour
Russel Henley is on a roll on the Web.com Tour, finishing now 1-3-1 in the last three weeks. He won the event in Jacksonville after a playoff and is the 5th player on that tour with 2 wins this season. moves to #3 in the OoM and somewhere inside tye top 150 owgr...

Sunshine Tour
Still not happening often enough unfortunately, but it’s great to see a black golfer winning in South Africa. Fantastic first win for Teboho Sefatsa, after seven years of trying on the Sunshine Tour. It wasn't so unexpected though, as he just topped the OoM on the Big Easy Tour this year. He collects his first 4 owgr points, good enough for an entry to somewhere around #880...

And finally, it's bye-bye top 100 for Rory Sabbatini (I can hear you crying) and Ryan Palmer...

The OWGR table after week #42 should look as follows:

1 Rory McIlroy
2 Tiger Woods
3 Luke Donald
4 Lee Westwood
5 Justin Rose
6 Adam Scott
7 Bubba Watson
8 Webb Simpson
9 Jason Dufner
10 Brandt Snedeker
---------------------------
11 Steve Stricker
12 Louis Oosthuizen
13 Matt Kuchar
14 Keegan Bradley
15 Dustin Johnson
16 Zach Johnson
17 Phil Mickelson
18 Sergio Garcia
19 Graeme McDowell
20 Hunter Mahan
21 Ernie Els
22 Nick Watney
23 Bo Van Pelt
24 Jim Furyk
25 Peter Hanson
26 Paul Lawrie
27 Ian Poulter
28 Rickie Fowler
29 Jason Day
30 Francesco Molinari
31 Charl Schwartzel
32 Carl Pettersson
33 Nicolas Colsaerts
34 Gonzalo Fdez-Castano
35 Martin Kaymer
36 David Toms
37 Bill Haas
38 Branden Grace
39 John Senden
40 Ryan Moore
41 David Lynn
42 K.J. Choi
43 Robert Garrigus
44 Thomas Bjorn
45 Geoff Ogilvy
46 Fredrik Jacobson
47 Scott Piercy
48 Rafael Cabrera Bello
49 Martin Laird
50 Bae Sang-moon
---------------------------
51 Jamie Donaldson
52 Richie Ramsay
53 Bud Cauley
54 Alexander Noren
55 Hiroyuki Fujita
56 Kevin Na
57 Padraig Harrington
58 Greg Chalmers
59 Simon Dyson
60 Aaron Baddeley
61 Thorbjorn Olesen
62 Marcel Siem
63 Kyle Stanley
64 Anders Hansen
65 John Huh
66 Vijay Singh
67 Bernd Wiesberger
68 Jonathan Byrd
69 K.T. Kim
70 Alvaro Quiros
71 Shane Lowry
72 Ben Crane
73 Marcus Fraser
74 Mark Wilson
75 Jonas Blixt
76 Michael Thompson
77 Ben Curtis
78 Pablo Larrazabal
79 Toru Taniguchi
80 George Coetzee
81 Marc Leishman
82 Matteo Manassero
83 Tim Clark
84 Thaworn Wiratchant
85 Jeff Overton
86 Noh Seung-yul
87 Johnson Wagner
88 Ryo Ishikawa
89 Y.E. Yang
90 Robert Karlsson
91 Yuta Ikeda
92 Miguel A Jimenez
93 Robert Rock
94 Retief Goosen
95 Brendon de Jonge
96 Ted Potter-jr
97 Jeev Milkha Singh
98 Ross Fisher
99 Danny Willett
99 Charles Howell-III
-------------------------
101 Charlie Wi
102 Rory Sabbatini
103 Ryan Palmer
...

One of the favourite times of the week, when we look to see what the owgr currency is worth.

The Top 50 becomes more crucial by the week as the end of year Masters cut-off of the owgr top 50 looms closer. Imagine Bill Haas is the highest ranked player for whom this might be an issue? Pox on him for not playing Fall Series tournaments.

As a trivia question, I see that one the the fellers entrenched in your Top 103 has two of a very small (9?) number of scores of 61 on this year's PGA Tour, Tommy Two Gloves having the only 60. Who do you think Mr 61 might be?

Of course, we all know that only one man has scored 2 x 60's on the PGA Tour . . . . . . . .

Cheers, kwini.
2x61? Would that be Ryan Moore by any chance?
Off to bed....

Sleep well! Dream/nightmare of 2 x 60's.

Luckily I didn't get to think about that one last night... Couldn't think of who it was this morning so I had to google it. So, now I know.....

Early count for this week:

- Shanghai BMW Masters @ ~56 pts (up from an $$$ exhibition last year)
- CIMB Classic @ ~36-38 pts (up from 30 pts last year)

- Luke could go back to #2 with a win, if Tiger finishes worse than solo 3rd
- Lee and Tiger can't move up
- Rose could hope for a move to #4 only with a 2-way tie for 2nd or better.

Interesting and I think a positive move by Volvo and the ET... next year's Volvo World Match Play will be hosted by Gary Player's course in Bulgaria...

Seems they're planning to move this around in future years - spectacular setting, reminds a little of Whistling Straits, just substitute the Black Sea for Lake Michigan!

Very spectacular and good to see there's still some effort put into bringing and developing golf in other corners of Europe before running quick where the big pot of gold is...

If BVP and Hanson win, they'll probably move to #16 and #17, respectively.
Rose will probbly need a solo 2nd to move to #4, unless Lee surges in the last round...

If Rory wins tomorrow, he's likely to distance himself more than 4 points from #2 and he'll have twice as many average points as the guy at #4!

For a number of reasons, the struggle for the last places inside the top 50 is going to be really tough and tricky this end of season. As I said already, some of the guys who left it too late or took it too easy may come to regret it later...

Can Lowry get into top 50?

He can, needs at least a solo 3rd to have a chance...

Bjorn signed up for Singapore, but one would think he's badly missing out on the Money For Nothing events, (but presume his chicks are for free).

Could be a Top 50 entry for Noren, but big chance being squandered by Donaldson, not to mention Ramsay. Better play (not luck) next week for them.

Ollie Fisher and Michael Hoey could also do themselves a lot of good with low rounds Sunday.